RobinsCraftRoom.com

Sure Can Use That Coffee Break!

Aloha, all!

     Ah, I really had been hoping to be sipping my coffee this week somewhere on the U. S. Mainland.  But here I am in my own craft room sipping my coffee in honor of the Divas Coffee Break Design Team Challenge this week.  I'm also taking a break from Halloween and Thanksgiving with a Christmas card.  I was really looking forward to all the shopping that I'd planned to do on the mainland, including Christmas gifts and decorations.  So I'm sure that the fact that I made a Christmas Design with this week's color challenge will be of no surprise to you.

     This color challenge was to use Crumb Cake, Marina Mist and Cajun Craze.  Oops, cannot believe it but I think I'm already almost out of my second pack of Cajun Craze!  Must be because I see it as a fall color.  But today, it's clearly a fantastic color to set off the Snow Swirled White Embossed Christmas Tree on the Marina Mist Card Stock. The Crumb Cake is no slouch when it comes to accenting this set up, either.  I used the Stampin' Up! Exclusive Sizzix Embossing Folder, "Northern Flurry," for the lovely snowflake background.  I almost thought about adding a few of the Basic Rhinestones to the textured layer, too.  But I decided that I wanted it to be in the background as a supporting character, with the tree as the star.

     The perfect final accent for this card is the Marina Mist 5/8" Satin Ribbon.  I just love how the ribbon matches the card stock so perfectly!

     Now I have to go visit the Divas Coffee Break Blog to see what the rest of the Design Team has come up with for today's challenge.  Fun colors!  And did you notice that we've ratcheted back to a 3-color challenge?  I like what the Queen Divas are doing with our challenges for the rest of the year.  What a great time to be part of the Design Team!  And you don't have to be part of the Design Team to enter the challenge!  Just make up a card of your own with the color challenge and go post a link to it on the Divas blog!  Simple as that – I'd love to see what you do!

     Keep creating – and have fun with it!

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A Winter Storm Watch in Hawaii

Updated November 16th–Quite a few people said my first photo looked more like blue and pink.  Not!!!!  Here’s a picture I took in daylight.  Definitely Handsome Hunter and Bravo Burgundy!

Aloha, all!

Oh, my, how the rains have come these past few days!  And now that it’s November, we here on the Big Island of Hawaii are all wondering if, when the clouds clear, we will see snow on the peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa!  An exciting time each year as we anticipate the first snows of the winter.  One tradition here is for people to take their pickup trucks up to Mauna Kea, fill them up with snow, and bring them down the hill.  I live far enough away that I’ve never seen a pickup arrive in our neighborhood still filled with snow.  After all, it is Hawaii, and it really isn’t all that cold – except up on the mountains.  But I have seen the neighbors all sunburned from their snowboarding trips because they forgot – it is Hawaii, and the sun is always hot!

All of this winter speculation has been enough for me to look for snowflake stamps to use this weekend!  The first is one of the snowflakes from the stamp set, Snow Swirled.  I especially love to emboss snowflakes on dark colors of card stock.  This time, rather than embossing a white snowflake, I chose Bravo Burgundy and Handsome Hunter (nicely embossed with the Sizzix Stampin’ Up! Petals a Plenty Embossing Folder), and added a bit of gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder and some Brushed Gold card stock.  Finish it off with some Gold Brads, and there’s a lovely Holiday card. 

The design for this card is part of this week’s Stamping 411 Challenge!  I just love this site because they not only give you a sketch to follow, but they also suggest measurements for the various layers.  If you have a stamp set you’re trying to figure out how to use, you should go to their website, pick out one of their challenge designs, and figure out how to use YOUR stamp set with THEIR design.  It really does get the creative juices flowing!

I’ll let you know when the clouds clear if we have snow!

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Christmas in July – Yet Another Challenge!

Aloha, all!

I’m still in a bit of a jet-lag-induced fog.  So I continue to look to challenges to get me going on some designs in the Craft Room.

This challenge was posted on a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator group forum, SUDSOL.  The challenge was to make a Chriistmas Card in July, and use red and green – ANY red and green.  When I think Christmas Cards, I don’t necessarily think red and green.  But when I DO think red and green, I think Handsome Hunter (the green) and Bravo Burgundy (the red).  

The stamp set that I used is one of my favorites, and has been on Stampin’ Up!’s "dormant" list for the past 6 months.  I was so happy to see it back in the 2009-2010 Stampin’ Up! Idea Book & Catalog.  Now only that, there’s a new Sizzix Texturz Plate, Stampin’ Up! Perfect Details, that seems to go with the "swirled" part of the gold embossed Christmas Tree.

One of the stamps that I really like in the set is the one with the saying that I used in today’s card.  The reason I like it is that it gives me a chance to accent the swirly first letter with a color than the main color with which I stamped it.  To do this, I ink up the stamp (in this case with the Handsome Hunter Classic Ink Pad), then use a Blender Pen to REMOVE the Handsome Hunter ink from the "M."  Finally, I ink the "M" with a Bravo Burgundy Stampin’ Write Marker, give the whole stamp a "huff," then stamp on the Very Vanilla cardstock.

There’s so much that’s new in this year’s new catalog.  But there’s also so very much that’s classic that helps make wonderful cards and scrapbook pages.  If you don’t have your new catalog yet, I’ll be glad to give you one if you’re in the East Hawaii area.  If you’re not within driving distance of Robin’s Craft Room, I’ll be happy to send you a copy for the cost of postage.  Just call (808.854.6145) or e-mail me!

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Scrapbooking Special Ornaments

Aloha, all! 

I’ve been pretty busy getting straightened up after the holiday AND checking out all the news from the Stampin’ Up! Leadership conference which is concluding today.  I can hardly wait to share some of the wonderful new products to be featured in the 2009 Spring/Summer Idea Book and Catalog!

But I digress.  Today I finished the first page of 4 pages that I will make to create a memory book of ornaments made over the years by my dear friend, Janet.  For the last 20 years or so, each Christmas Janet has hand-stitched a most wonderful ornament for our Christmas Tree.  And she made DOZENS of these ornaments for her friends and family.  For several years, Janet’s wonderful husband, Gary, has encouraged her to move on from this time-consuming activity to other projects.  This year, Gary passed away suddenly, and Janet has now acceded to his request.  So there will be no more new ornaments on our tree.  In fact, right now, we have enough ornaments, including those that I made and those made by other friends, that we cannot fit them all on our trees (yes, we have two trees–Norfolk Island Pines cut from our garden each year).  ALL of the Janet ornaments ALWAYS make it to the trees. 

Before we took down this year’s trees, I took photographs of Janet’s ornaments, and decided to create a small 4-page scrapbook with the photos. 

This photograph shows one of our trees and four of the Janet ornaments that were on it.

As I complete the remaining pages over the next week or so, I’ll share them with you, too!

Thanks, Janet, for all the wonderful memories you create each year as we decorate and enjoy our Christmas trees!

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A Bit on the Fancy Side

Aloha, all!

Today I continue my effort to get my Christmas cards all done by the end of the week.  However, I got a bit sidetracked by a friend’s request to make a card for her to give with a "Welcome Home" gift.  Of course, it had to be made today!  But I’m all about customer service, so today it was.

This also gave me the opportunity to use the beautiful stamp set, Snow Swirled (111690), which I’ve been wanting to use with some embossing since the day it arrived on my doorstep.   This card is made with two different embossing powders.  The tree is embossed using VersaMark ink  (102283) and Gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder (109029).  The snowflakes in the background, both design also from the Snow Swirled set, are embossed using VersaMark and Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder (109130).  So I got to fire up the Heat Tool (100005) twice!  I just love it when that embossing starts to show up on the card stock!

I finished off the top of the tree with a Rhinestone Brad from the Circle Fire collection (109110).  The card stock that I used for this card is Riding Hood Red and Handsome Hunter (Hmmm.  Seems like I used that fairy tale combination before!)  Finally, I added a bit of Brushed Gold card stock behind the Riding Hood Red.

It’s still not too late to order supplies before Christmas and before the FREE SHIPPING offer expires!  Just hop online and your supplies will be on YOUR doorstep before you know it!

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Stamp Club Extras

Aloha, all!

My stamp club and I just didn’t have enough time last week to get into all the projects that we wanted to.  For one thing, all the club members are really new at this, and there is just SOOOO much to learn and so LITTLE TIME to learn it!! 

So I invited them over for a second session this afternoon.  And what a blast we had!  We worked on two projects that had piqued their interest–a Bag in a Box and Stamping on Candles.  Here are photos of two of today’s projects.

The stamp set that we used for the candles today was Snow Swirled.  I had held off on buying this stamp set, thinking (wrongly) that, "I had enough Christmas stamps!"  But I have been taken with all the samples of this stamp set I’ve seen online that I couldn’t hold off any more buying my own copy.  It arrived yesterday just in time for today’s activities.  To complement the tree, I inserted some gold brads into the candle as tree decorations.  A little bit of Real Red card stock on the bottom of the candle, accented with Gold Elastic Cord, just finished off this Christmas candle to perfection!

To make the images on the candle, we stamped with Classic Stamp Pads on plain tissue paper.  After we cut our images out (very close to the stamping), we laid them on the candle, wrapped the candle in waxed paper, and set the tissue stamped images into the candle using our heat tool.  You can find all the instructions on Split Coast Stampers.  They definitely say it better than I do!

I did some candle "stamping" last year, and was able to get right into it again this year with barely any learning curve.  It’s easy and I’ll bet you can do it, too!   If you’re in East Hawaii, just call and let me know that you’d like a demonstration and I’ll be happy toi arrange a time!  Call me (808.965.1391) or e-mail me to set up a time!

And don’t forget that we’re still in the midst of a FREE SHIPPING PERIOD at Stampin’ Up!  This is really the best time to order some of those stamp sets that you’d just love to put on a candle–or a Holiday gift of any kind!

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the Bag in a Box projects!

Happy Stamping!  AND DON’T FORGET FREE SHIPPING THROUGH DECEMBER 23!!!

Robin

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